The Scion
by Altariel
Summary: The grass is singing. How to remember the dead.


**The Scion**

_Farewell, farewell to you who would hear  
__You lonely travellers all  
__The cold north wind will blow again  
__The winding road does call_

* * *

_Gondor, early in the Fourth Age _

Faramir pondered how best to remember his dead. Éowyn, he knew, found this preoccupation morbid. Her memories were stored in song and story, and there were graves too. Théodred's barrow lay at the Fords, and Théoden had taken his place among his forefathers in the mounds of Edoras. They had walked there together, he and Éowyn, one morning after rain. The ground had smelt wet, and the graves were covered in s_imbelmynë_, to keep them ever mindful.

"Stone is no substitute for story," she said. "Memory is what matters."

He envied her this capacity – but he was a man of Minas Tirith, the stone city, a Númenorean.

Stones were memory made real, the means by which the long history of his people was recorded. The way to preserve memory once the living had passed.

There were many public memorials throughout the city. On the walls of the Causeway Forts there was a long list of the dead from the breaking of the bridge onwards, ordered by fiefdom and rank. Listed first, under MINAS TIRITH, were these names:

_Denethor II, son of Ecthelion, Lord and Twenty-Sixth Ruling Steward of Gondor  
__Boromir, son of Denethor, High Warden of the White Tower, Captain-General of Gondor_

Lord and Steward; Captain and Warden. Not father; not brother. Below them came the names of many who had been his boyhood friends: men lost at Osgiliath, or in the siege, or on the Pelennor, and, if he walked along the wall, he came to ITHILIEN, and the Rangers he had lost. He knew where each one of these was buried. Their graves lay throughout his whole long country. Sometimes he had helped dig them, and then stood beneath the sighing trees and said the words, commending them to Mandos, hoping that the judgement would not be too harsh.

There were no graves for his family because there had been no bodies. Boromir had slipped past him on the water; his father had been consumed by fire. Denethor's pyre had taken his mother's tomb too. The place where, each year, at _mettar__ë_, he and his brother would come to light small candles and remember her, as best they could, sharing with each other the fading memories. The artless ritual of two boys; even this was gone. Gone too were the rest: the fire had taken Mardil, and Cirion, and Ecthelion, and all of them – his family, his history, gone. He had forgiven his father many things; he struggled with this desecration.

"But you are alive," Éowyn said. "You live to tell the tale."

_Story_, he thought; _song_… Could this compensate? As the months passed, he found many memories returning that had been submerged by the long years of struggle and strife; memories of his brother as a boy; memories of his father before that wintry cloak of grief he carried hardened into granite and nothing of the man he had once been could be reached. One afternoon, sealed with his peers in the council chamber, a spring breeze slipping through the window brought a fresh scent of pine from the mountains, and he recalled…

_His father, wearying of work, coming to find him at his studies in the library, handing him a cloak, and leading him with long strides out onto the mountain paths, taking secret paths to places where they could sit and look down on their City, and out beyond, to the glimmer of Rauros, and the hint in the West of the Sea… _

Another time, walking through the White Tower with the King, waylaid by some ancient lord of the city, held for a long time by a meandering tale, catching Aragorn's eye, and thinking back…

_To standing here with his brother, hearing this same long story, and his brother's pitiless attempts to make him laugh…_

Or at some gathering in the hall, a harp would be struck, or he would catch a woman's scent, and he would feel again that dull pang of loss, and remember…

_A tress of dark hair twining between his fingers; a woman's voice singing a song of the sea… _

The sun had long set. Faramir sat, as ever, at his desk. In the room beyond, he heard movement and then smelled pipe weed. He sighed, and put down his pen, and waited for the door to open—

"Faramir," said Elessar, looking in. "Come with me."

It was not in the Steward's nature to disobey such a clear command. Instead he equivocated. "Where?"

"Out. For a walk."

Faramir was starting to recognize this mood. It meant that the King had been cooped up for too long. It meant miles before bed. It meant sleeping outside, or not sleeping at all.

"A long walk?"

"Yes."

The Steward looked down helplessly at his overflowing desk. "Must I?"

The King nodded.

"Can I eat first?"

"I've brought food." He was pawing the ground. "Come with me!"

Nothing to be done. The Steward surrendered, grabbed his cloak, and followed.

They walked out into the court and over to the White Tree. The King dismissed the guard, then stood and breathed in the spring night air. The tree shone in the moonlight. Faramir stood and breathed in too. Knots in his shoulders released. He looked at the King. "Better?"

The King muttered something through his pipe, then bent before the tree. Reaching within the foliage, he pushed the leaves aside, and then _pulled_—

Faramir's breath caught. A fruit lay in Elessar's hand, round and soft as a peach, but with a silver sheen.

"Come," said Elessar, softly. "We have some way to go."

They stole out of the City. No-one marked their passing. Two dark hooded figures in shabby cloaks; they might have been anyone. Beyond the walls, they struck south, coming to the foothills of Mindolluin, and then up, up, as the night wore on, along a path rarely taken. They were quickly in step. Two Rangers on the move. No need for speech.

In the first pale light of dawn, they came to a high field that looked down over the precipice behind the City. Here they stood and surveyed the land. "Look," said the King. "Look to Gondor."

The sun was rising quickly now, a golden glow that gladdened the heart. Faramir looked out across Ithilien, the green land that had made him, and that he loved. North then he looked, across the Anduin to the distant falls of Rauros (and remembered his brother); and nearer he looked, down at the towers of his city (and remembered his father); and, turning, he looked out along the River to the Sea (and remembered his mother).

"Gondor," said the Steward, with love.

Aragorn knelt down and, with his knife, began to cut a piece of turf. When that was done, they dug at the soft earth with their hands to make a small hollow. Then Aragorn took from his pack the silver fruit, and – gently, lovingly – placed it in the ground. Together, they covered it again, and lay the turf over the top. Who knew how long it would lie there, dormant? The fruit of the line of Nimloth could lie sleeping for many long years, and none could say when it might awake. The grass and the snows would keep it safe, until the need arose.

Aragorn brushed the dirt from his hands and sat back. Rummaging in his pack, he drew out bread and cheese and bottles of beer. "Breakfast," said Strider, with satisfaction. They clinked their bottles together, and drank, and ate. After a while, Faramir said, "Did the Stewards know this place?"

"I think not," said the King, and grinned. "And I have seen three Stewards! For now, it is known only to us. I shall bring a son here, one day – and he, I hope, shall bring yours."

Sons, fathers, grandfathers… Faramir lay back on the grass and closed his eyes. Soon enough he could smell pipe weed. Yes, he had known them: had served Ecthelion, debated Denethor, journeyed with Boromir. He had known Finduilas, too, before she died. And he knew (yes, yes, who else so well knew?) the long song of Númenor, of which the tale of the Stewards was but a small yet vital passage.

The sun was warm. The grass was softly singing. He slept for a while, in peace.

* * *

_Altariel, 15__th__ December 2019_


End file.
